


may we burn bright (for you know it won't last long)

by Roses_and_rain



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, M/M, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Shabbat, socially anxious narration, they're both jewish in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25131595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roses_and_rain/pseuds/Roses_and_rain
Summary: On their first night in the safehouse, Jon and Martin light Shabbat candles and talk.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	may we burn bright (for you know it won't last long)

**Author's Note:**

> for folks unfamiliar with Shabbat traditions, i've added clarification on a few terms in the end notes

It is a Friday when Jon and Martin arrive at the safehouse. It is, eldritch horrors notwithstanding, one of the strangest days of Martin’s life.

He’s found himself a part of the world in a way he hasn’t been for - God, how many months? When they emerged from the battered Institute, the London sky was as gray as if they’d never left the Lonely’s mist, but the chilly air, the rumble of traffic, Jon’s hand in his - it all felt so terribly real. It was a relief, he thinks, but more than anything it was overwhelming.

All of which is to say that it is hardly surprising the date had slipped his mind.

Now, however, with their bags dropped in a corner to be dealt with tomorrow and a large spider relocated from the kitchen to the yard, they have collapsed on the couch. Jon is slumped against his shoulder, and Martin has half a mind not to move an inch until at least tomorrow morning, but he’s kept up the tradition this long. There’s always been a certain comfort in the ritual of it, if only that of a clear and manageable task, and… he thinks it might be nice not to light the candles alone.

“What are you thinking about?” Jon asks. His voice is heavy with exhaustion but he lifts his head, leaning back into the circle of Martin’s arm to fix him with a quizzical gaze.

“It’s Shabbat,” Martin answers, a little taken aback (intuition or Beholding, he wonders, but doesn’t want to ask).

“Oh,” says Jon, “so it is.”

“Yeah, I usually do a couple of the blessings? Er, you don’t need to, obviously, but I’m gonna have to get up for a bit.”

“No, of course,” Jon says. “I could - that is, I’d like to join you, if…”

“I’d like that,” Martin says, and Jon smiles, and Martin is reminded of lunches spent in awkward, earnest small talk, trying to tease out a flicker of that wry warmth, back before things went quite so wrong.

“So we need candles?” Jon says, straightening, tiredness pushed away in pursuit of this new assignment. “I suppose Daisy might have some, although -”

“No, I’ve got some.” In their hurried trip to his flat, Martin had grabbed a bag of long-forgotten tealights, thinking they’d be easier to pack. “Not, like, kosher ones, but…”

“I think this’ll all have to be a bit nontraditional. There are some biscuits in the kitchen we could use for a _M_ _otzi_ ,” Jon offers.

So they gather Martin’s tealights and a dusty packet of ginger snaps and lay them out on the kitchen table. Martin fidgets with the candles self-consciously until he catches himself and stills his hands, and then realizes -

“Oh, I didn’t bring matches.”

Jon pulls his cobwebbed lighter from his jacket pocket.

“Oh,” Martin says, adding ‘Jon’s creepy spider lighter’ to his mental list of things to talk about when they’ve settled in, “um... cool.”

Martin lights the little candles and softly chants the blessing. He fully expects to feel rather silly and plans to keep their patchwork service as short as possible, but force of habit carries him into _Shalom Aleichem_. To his surprise, Jon starts to sing too, uncertainly at first, but with the growing assurance of memory.

They’re both silent for a moment when the song ends. Somehow, with Jon leaning into his side, watching the candle flames, the safehouse feels more truly like a haven. Somewhere they can catch their breath, at least.

It feels like speaking will break the spell, but in the end Martin would rather deal with that than the uncertainty of a companionable silence stretched into awkwardness.

“I didn’t know you could sing.”

“Yes, well, I - I don’t much anymore.”

“Not since the incident,” Martin adds, mimicking his dark tone before he can think better of it and recall that there have in fact been many traumatic incidents in their recent past and that was probably insensitive or- But Jon just rolls his eyes and reaches for a biscuit.

They bless the ginger snap, though it’s so stale Martin isn’t sure it deserves to be affirmed as a foodstuff, and retire again to the couch. Jon settles himself at one end, propping his chin on his knees, and looks at Martin with a troubled expression.

“Does it bother you that… that there are things we don’t know about each other? More than usual, I mean?”

Martin feels the familiar twist of anxiety in his stomach. _Of course_ , is his first thought, _if you knew me well enough you wouldn’t be here_. But he looks back at Jon, perched defensive but resolute on the sofa and trying to _talk_ , and he doesn’t believe that, not really.

“No,” Martin says honestly, and sees Jon’s posture relax just a bit. “I mean… I don’t know about usual, okay, but it was enough, wasn’t it? For you to come find me?”

“Of course.” Jon says it quickly, but there’s clearly more on his mind, so Martin waits until he adds,“I’m sorry - it was something Lukas said, and I know it’s stupid to listen, it’s just…”

“No, I get it. But also, let’s definitely not take relationship advice from Peter Lukas, yeah?”

“...Yes.”

“And even if that is… if you’re worried about it, we’ve got time now, right? So… tell me something I don’t know.”

“Like what?”

“Mm… what did you mean, ‘anymore’? About the singing?”

“Oh - nothing, really.” Jon adjusts his glasses in a distinctly embarrassed manner. “I... played music with some friends for a while before the Institute, so, you know, I used to sing more often.”

“You were in a band?” Martin asks, delighted.

“Only technically,” Jon says. “You said you light candles every week?”

“That was not a subtle segue,” Martin says, still grinning. “But yeah, pretty much. Habit from when I was little, I guess.”

Jon nods. “ My grandmother used to. I haven’t in a while, though. And at this point… well, I’ve seen enough ‘gods’ whose followers have kidnapped me that it’s hard to put much stock in one who won’t even put that effort in.”

“Hmm. For me, it’s not really - I mean, it is praying, but… it’s not really about God? It’s just - I sort of like the thought that there’s some other house where someone’s singing the same blessing, you know? And especially when I started working for Peter, it felt like a way to stay a little bit connected, a bit more... human.”

“Oh,” says Jon, and there’s a pause in which Martin debates whether that was a more serious answer than the conversation called for and Jon appears to search for the proper response.

“I learned to make challah once,” he says eventually. “I could try and remember the recipe, for next week?”

Warmth fills Martin’s chest, shaking loose some of the doubt that still resides there. “Yeah,” he says, “that sounds good.”

(Next Friday, they will make the challah together. It will be asymmetrical but delicious. Martin will try to preserve every detail of that afternoon in his memory - warm sunlight flooding the kitchen, the rising scent of baking bread, and Jon, in flour-speckled shirtsleeves, humming what sounds like a sea shanty. He will think about how long it’s been since he’s written a poem and resolve to buy a notebook on his next walk into town.)

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so, working definitions:  
> Shabbat - the Jewish Sabbath/day of rest. lasts from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. its beginning is marked by blessings over candles and food, as well as one called the Kiddush, which was omitted due to the safehouse's lack of wine  
> Motzi - the blessing over bread, technically called HaMotzi but I'm pretty much just drawing on my family traditions here and we tend to drop the Ha (meaning 'the') in casual conversation  
> Shalom Aleichem - a song often sung before Shabbat dinner  
> challah - type of bread made to be eaten on Shabbat, typically in the shape of a braid
> 
> Hope you enjoy!


End file.
